“Merkel phone” security firm teams up with Vodafone on new Secure Call app

The company that handles the security of the so-called “Merkel phone” – the customized BlackBerry that the German chancellor and other members of her administration have recently started using – is now making a push to offer secure services to normal companies.

At the Cebit tech show in Hanover, Germany, Secusmart announced a deal with mobile carrier Vodafone to offer an app called Secure Call, which supposedly does what it says on the tin. In the words of Vodafone Deutschland CEO Jens Schulte-Bockum, “Secure Call is an effective weapon against phone tapping for people who want to protect their intellectual property.”

Additionally, Secusmart said it would try selling the Merkel phone more widely. This actually entails several BlackBerry models (Merkel uses the Z10), with the encryption and secure storage coming from a special microSD card.

Security first

The NSA bugging of Merkel’s communications was one of the biggest political scandals to come out of Edward Snowden’s revelations. At the time of the tapping, the chancellor was using an old and relatively low-tech Nokia, and the surveillance appears to have stopped when she switched to the new device (funnily enough, this was around the time that the Snowden leaks dropped.)

The Merkel phone, however, costs €2,000 ($2,800). Secure Call will reportedly cost around €10 per user per month, and it will support more platforms – Android first, then iOS and Windows Phone. It will initially only be available in Germany.

Vodafone also boosted its “Secure SIM” card offering at the show, announcing a new version developed alongside security firm G&D. This SIM card provides easy-to-use authentication for encrypted email, VPN sessions and so on.

KPN, the Dutch telco that runs the E-Plus and Base brands in Germany, is also targeting the privacy-conscious by reselling Silent Circle’s secure communications services. These services are also bundled alongside others in the Blackphone, an Android-derived collaboration between Silent Circle and Spanish manufacturer Geeksphone that should turn up shortly at a price of $629.